Unions eye comeback after bill snags

Despite a setback on Capitol Hill, union leaders vow to press ahead for a law to provide new organizing tools. But that’s just one piece of a mosaic of change needed to launch a major labor comeback.

A unified voice, a contemporary image and a broad retooling to fit the global economy are all required fixes before union leaders can make a strong pivot from defense to offense.

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The movement also needs to develop a compelling argument about its relevancy in today’s economy, where workers are more sophisticated, mobile and dispersed and compensation packages more complex than a paycheck and a pension.

The extraordinary White House intervention in the auto industry sheds light on some of the challenges for both labor and management. As the top brass develops new business plans, the United Auto Workers is giving up benefits to help cut costs and keep its shrinking membership employed.

“The workplace has changed dramatically since the 1930s,” said Peter Morici, a University of Maryland labor and business law expert. “In some sectors, like the auto industry, unions today can be perceived as imposing risks on workers rather than security.”

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Finally, labor could help its cause if its national leaders didn’t appear so often as a quarrelling circle of backroom dealers — almost all white men, elbowing each other for premier status and turf on a shrinking power base.

“There is so much infighting over who is President Obama’s best friend, it is labor at its weakest, thinking it is at its strongest,” said one movement insider.

The current challenge: organizing

A renewed emphasis by some unions on organizing has shown some progress. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers belonging to unions in 2008 represented 12.4 percent of the work force, up slightly from 12.1 percent in 2007.

Government workers were five times more likely to belong to a union, but only about 8 percent of private-sector workers did.

The labor movement is also lagging in organizing the next generation. About 17 percent of union members were 55 to 64 years old; only about 5 percent of workers ages 16 to 24 belonged to a union.

Labor leaders argue that organizing is tougher today because the system favors employers.

Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, said the United States is the only leading democracy “where workers have to vote against their boss in order to have a seat at the table.”

When organizing elections are scheduled, employers aggressively pressure employees to vote against the union. “They say, ‘You don’t need a seat at the table. We’ll take care of you,’” Cohen said. “That is a very nice 17th-century idea.”